Trips to the vet

When Cary brought Atticus home two weeks ago, he was too little to get his first round of vaccines - only five weeks old. Since that time, he has been living rather unhappily in our guest bathroom. This wasn't really an ideal situation for anyone - not for Atticus, because he hates being alone, not for George, who couldn't figure out what smelled so much like another cat behind the bathroom door, not for me, who had to clean the bathroom three times a week and listen to Atticus's pitiful mewing when he was locked in there, and not for Cary, who was having visions of himself crawling on his hands and knees into our crying firstborn baby's bedroom to check on him/her, while I wrung my hands in despair in the hallway (this is more or less my reaction to Atticus's crying). He had to live in the bathroom, though, because without vaccines or AIDS/leukemia tests, he and George could have gotten each other sick. So it was a happy day yesterday when I finally took Atticus to the vet to get his first shots.

This cat knows no fear. If he weren't so small, he'd probably be terrifying. He had no problem with being put in the carrier, and spent the whole of the car ride hanging on to the wire grid door, trying to stick his head out to see as much as possible. It didn't bother him that there were dogs in the waiting room at the vet. He was fine with being handed off to the vet techs who gave him his shots, and seemed to be more or less unruffled when they were finished. He did not enjoy his fecal exam, and was sure to let everyone know, but not for a minute did he cower or hide. While we were waiting for the test results, he happily explored the waiting room, charming everyone who came near him. The techs all commented on his feisty personality. When it was time to leave, he cheerfully went back in the carrier, and fell asleep purring on the way home.

Today, I took George, our nine-year-old cat, to get his shots updated. George is a lion of a cat. According to the vet, he weighs 18 pounds, but not because we overfeed him. He's just really, really big. My friend Betty's two-year-old daughter probably weighs about the same as this cat. Maybe less. So there is really nothing that George should be afraid of - he's bigger than any other cat he'll ever meet, barring a tiger or something, and most dogs we know are scared to come near him. Unfortunately, no one has told George this.

To get George into the cat carrier at all, we have to roll him up in a towel like a burrito. This is usually a two-person job - Cary rolls, and I hold the carrier vertically so he can drop George in. Today, I had to do this myself, because Cary was at work. It actually went pretty well - I propped the carrier up against the bedframe, and George was so caught off-guard that he went right in. Then I had to lug him to the car, which was kind of difficult considering the fact that he weighs 18 pounds and was huddled in the back of the carrier, which threw off the balance of the whole thing. When I got him to the vet, it took me and a vet tech to get him out - I pulled his front legs, and she tipped the carrier upside down. Once we got him on the examining table, I had to lean on him and wrap both of my arms around him to keep him from running away. We had to get extra help for the fecal exam. While we were waiting for the doctor, he went back in the carrier, so the doctor had to literally turn the carrier at a 90-degree angle to the floor to get him back out. I leaned on him again while she examined him again, which earned me a waist-to-neck coating of white cat hair on my black shirt. When I brought him home, he deigned to let me pet him for a minute, and then retreated to our bedroom, where he hid under the bed.

Before I introduced these two cats, I was worried that George would be hostile to Atticus - he is, after all, an intruder in George's house. It concerned me that George is so much bigger than Atticus; he could really hurt him if he wanted to. These fears have proven unfounded, as George is more or less indifferent to Atticus, and Atticus spends most of his time trying to show George what a tough guy he is. George will just sit around, looking apathetic, watching Atticus make a fool of himself chasing his tail or something, and will lay perfectly still when Atticus approaches him - doesn't hiss or swat at him, the hair on his back doesn't even stand up. Atticus, on the other hand, approaches George with the look of a guerrilla fighter - slow and stealthy, bristling all over. Then when he gets close enough for George to sniff him - as he inevitably will sniff anything that gets within three inches of his face - Atticus attacks, swatting and spitting for approximately .46 seconds, and then runs off as though none of this was his fault. I saw him actually chase George down the hall yesterday, which was pretty funny, since George probably weighs 10 times as much as Atticus and could easily sit on him and crush him. Poor George doesn't really seem to know what has happened to his life - one minute, he was the king of our new house, and the next, he was being chased by a hissing dust bunny. Right now, Atticus is next to me on the couch, sleeping off the exhaustion of a creature who spends 90% of his waking hours running in circles and attacking feet, and George is in the bedroom, probably reassessing his life. Poor thing. When Cary comes home, he's going to spend some time with him, to reassure him that he hasn't been replaced. All the while, Atticus will be biting his ankles.